Indian Police foils Kashmiri women’s march

SRINAGAR, Mar 8: Police today foiled the bid by Muslim Khawateen Markaz (MKM) to take out the march here today against the government atrocities on women in Kashmir.
Chief of MKM, Zamrooda Habib strongly condemned the police action and alleged that the cops misbehaved with the women activists and strongly criticized the authorities for not deploying the woman police there.
Reports said that MKM had planned a protest march on the international woman’s day. They assembled at Abiguzar and moved towards Press Colony where more women activists were waiting for them. The protesters tried to move out but they were not allowed by the policemen.
Zamrooda Habib said that on one side, the women in Kashmir are being targeted and on other side they are not being allowed to hold protests.
Syed Ali Shah Geelani, chairman Hurriyat Conference (G), has strongly condemned the police action.
In a statement he appealed the international community to intervene and take a serious note of human rights abuses in Kashmir.
Hurriyat (M) has flayed international human rights groups for maintaining ‘criminal silence ‘ over the ‘mental and physical torture’ of Kashmiri women during the last two decades.
“On a day when people across the globe are observing the international women’s rights day, the international rights groups and other world bodies continue to maintain criminal silence over the human rights violations committed against Kashmiri women,” the faction said in a statement.
“During the last 22 years, thousands of innocent Kashmiri women have been widowed and thousands of mothers of disappeared youth are waiting for their sons to return. They expect justice from the international community, which, however, for the sake of so-called interests is maintaining a criminal silence on these issues,” the statement said.
The faction said that scores of women remain incarcerated in jails in and outside Jammu and Kashmir for their “political beliefs”, and urged the international community to use its influence to secure their release.S:KT